What parents need to know

Positive messages

Holmes is ever polite and fearless seeker of justice (even though it harmed his own family; only the sketchiest details given). He and Watson (who overeats and tries to smoke a pipe) are shown to be consistently smarter than the adults, who are either oblivious (especially Lestrade of Scotland Yard) or treacherous villains in disguise. The "exotic" depiction of Arab-Egyptian culture (emphasis on the "cult" part) is pretty cartoony.

Violence

More PG than PG-13. One fatal shooting. Characters "mummified" non-explicitly by hot wax. Mild wounds from sword-thrusts. Hand-to-hand fighting, strangulation. Bloodless, hallucination-inspired mayhem and death include one character who stabs himself in the chest, another getting run over by a carriage, another besieged by rotting skeletons, another imagining little monsters pecking and biting at him.

Sex

Not applicable

Language

"Hell" and "damn," just about one time each.

Consumerism

Not applicable

Drinking, drugs, & smoking

Pipe-smoking by the young Watson and Holmes. Social drinking (but not by underage characters).

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that perils in this young-adult Sherlock Holmes drama include threats of the heroine being sacrificially turned into an Egyptian-style mummy, and kids being strangled and run through with swords. There's some potential nightmare imagery for young viewers -- scenes of demonic entities and rotting zombies; it's made clear that these are only hallucinations, but the chills are still vividly rendered. Young Watson tries tobacco smoking.

User reviews

Parents say

Kids say

What's the story?

In a boys' school in Victorian-era England, two students encounter each other who are destined to be illustrious crimefighting partners in adulthood, the teenage Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe), who is already a genius at logical deduction, and the pudgy adolescent James Watson. Holmes' braininess is renown among the kids and faculty, but that only makes him an easier target when a resentful classmate frames Holmes for cheating on an exam. Meanwhile, a number of aged London men have been dying under weird circumstances, in hysterics from occultish hallucinations. When this bizarre curse strikes the school's retired headmaster, Holmes sneaks back onto the grounds and prowl's London's dark corners to solve the mystery, with Watson's assistance.

Is it any good?

QUALITY

Young Sherlock Holmes is not an awful movie; it just should have been so much better. The movie came out under the auspices of Steven Spielberg's production company, when other Hollywood directors were signing on to do Spielberg-like fantasies with the finest possible casts, imagination, and special effects. The title alone suggested a can't-miss property -- and yet for all the high hopes, Young Sherlock Holmes unfurls disappointingly, like old Indiana Jones. Yes, there's an elementary change in scenery and accents, but the cliffhanger stunts, cartoonish foreigners, black-magic stuff (all the more inconsequential because we find out it's all delusions), ludicrous temple-of-doom that, just like the Death Star, comes complete with a convenient self-destruct mode -- it doesn't take a you-know-who to deduce it was all swiped from other Lucas-Spielberg 1980s blockbusters.

Scriptwriter Chris Columbus was later to make the first few Harry Potter movies, and the early school scenes (complete with a Draco Malfoy-lookalike antagonist) do have a nice flavor and potential, before the hand-me-down thrill rides and the way-silly revenge scheme at the center of the mystery take over.

Families can talk about...

Families can talk about the idea of Sherlock Holmes as a boy. How well is it done here? This movie suggests that Holmes' intellect and penchant for crime-solving backfired -- when he busted his own father for some unspecified offense. Is being this brilliant a help or a hindrance for a kid? You might compare Young Sherlock Holmes to other stories that portray youthful mystery-solvers, including the "Encyclopedia Brown" series, and Eye of the Crow, Death in the Air, and other recent YA novels by Shane Peacock that try to depict (in far more depth than this film) the troubled childhood of Conan Doyle's great sleuth.

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About Our Rating System

The age displayed for each title is the minimum one for which it's developmentally appropriate. We recently updated all of our reviews to show only this age, rather than the multi-color "slider." Get more information about our ratings.

What parents and kids say

uggh

my mom made the mistake of showing this movie to me (12), and my two brothers (6 and 14). They were both scared. some scenes, like the mummifaction ceremony, are truly disturbing. also, i did not like it when the priest was killed. plus, it wasnt even a good movie. there are much better ones out there. not reccommended

Great Movie!

Its a great movie! I would reccomend it only for people that LOVE mystery/scary/adventure movies because this one has it all. The story is great but it may be scary to kids under the age of 11 or 10. Great movie!

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